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Description:
Kegel exercise, consists of repeatedly contracting and relaxing the muscles that form part of the pelvic floor, now sometimes colloquially referred to as the “Kegel muscles“. The exercise needs to be performed multiple times each day, for several minutes at a time, for one to three months, to begin to have an effect.

Exercises are usually done to reduce urinary stress incontinence (especially after childbirth) and reduce premature ejaculatory occurrences in men, as well as to increase the size and intensity of erections.

Several tools exist to help with these exercises, although various studies debate the relative effectiveness of different tools versus traditional exercises.

They were first described in 1948 by Arnold Kegel.

Health effects for women:
Factors such as pregnancy, childbirth, aging, being overweight, and abdominal surgery such as cesarean section, often result in the weakening of the pelvic muscles. This can be assessed by either digital examination of vaginal pressure or using a Kegel perineometer. Kegel exercises are useful in regaining pelvic floor muscle strength in such cases.

Urinary health:
Pelvic floor exercise is the recommended first-line conservative treatment for women with urinary incontinence of the stress, urge, or mixed types.[8] There is tentative evidence that biofeedback may give added benefit when used with pelvic floor muscle training.

Pelvic prolapse:
The symptoms of prolapse and its severity can be decreased with pelvic floor exercises. Effectiveness can be improved with feedback on how to do the exercises.

Sexual function:
In 1952, Dr. Kegel published a report in which he stated that the women doing this exercise were attaining orgasm more easily, more frequently and more intensely: “it has been found that dysfunction of the pubococcygeus exists in many women complaining of lack of vaginal feeling during coitus and that in these cases sexual appreciation can be increased by restoring function of the pubococcygeus”.

Direct benefits of Kegel Exercise for woman:

*Leaks a few drops of urine while sneezing, laughing or coughing (stress incontinence)

*Have a strong, sudden urge to urinate just before losing a large amount of urine (urinary incontinence)

*Leak stool (fecal incontinence)

Kegel exercises can be done during pregnancy or after childbirth to try to prevent urinary incontinence.

One should keep in mind that Kegel exercises are less helpful for women who have severe urine leakage when they sneeze, cough or laugh. Also, Kegel exercises aren’t helpful for women who unexpectedly leak small amounts of urine due to a full bladder (overflow incontinence).

Health effects for men:
Though most commonly used by women, men can also use Kegel exercises. Kegel exercises are employed to strengthen the pubococcygeal muscle and other muscles of the pelvic diaphragm. Kegels can help men achieve stronger erections, maintain healthy hips, and gain greater control over ejaculation. The objective of this may be similar to that of the exercise in women with weakened pelvic floor: to increase bladder and bowel control and sexual function.

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*Urinary health:
After a prostatectomy there is no clear evidence that teaching pelvic floor exercises alters the risk of urinary incontinence (leakage of urine).

*Sexual function:
A paper found that pelvic floor exercises could help restore erectile function in men with erectile dysfunction. There are said to be significant benefits for the problem of premature ejaculation from having more muscular control of the pelvisHow to do Kegel exercises

To get started:

*Find the right muscles. To identify your pelvic floor muscles, stop urination in midstream. If you succeed, you’ve got the right muscles. Once you’ve identified your pelvic floor muscles you can do the exercises in any position, although you might find it easiest to do them lying down at first.

*Perfect your technique. Tighten your pelvic floor muscles, hold the contraction for five seconds, and then relax for five seconds. Try it four or five times in a row. Work up to keeping the muscles contracted for 10 seconds at a time, relaxing for 10 seconds between contractions.Maintain your focus. For best results, focus on tightening only your pelvic floor muscles. Be careful not to flex the muscles in your abdomen, thighs or buttocks. Avoid holding your breath. Instead, breathe freely during the exercises.

*Repeat three times a day.Aim for at least three sets of 10 repetitions a day.
Don’t make a habit of using Kegel exercises to start and stop your urine stream. Doing Kegel exercises while emptying your bladder can actually lead to incomplete emptying of the bladder — which increases the risk of a urinary tract infection.

Disclaimer: This information is not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advise or help. It is always best to consult with a Physician about serious health concerns. This information is in no way intended to diagnose or prescribe remedies.This is purely for educational purpose.

Medicinal uses;
It is one of the 50 fundamental herbs used in traditional Chinese medicine.
It has a number of purported uses and folk remedies that include treatment for inflammation, scurvy and fever. A tea made from the stem and leaves can be made to act as a diuretic. Moreover, it also has certain astringent properties and uses.

Other Uses:This can be grown as cute little ground cover .It makes a darling groundcover of tiny leaves, topped all summer with miniature pink, lobelia-like flowers.

Disclaimer:
The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

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It is very difficult to know what a newborn baby is capable of. In the early days and weeks after birth, to the naked eye, not much. Eating, crying, sleeping, and pooping seem to take up the majority of her day, with a few moments of alertness thrown in for good measure. But recent research has shown that she’s doing a lot more than that. “Even in the first minutes of life, babies are a wonder,” says Naomi Steiner, MD, a developmental and behavioral pediatrician at Tufts-New England Medical Center, in Boston. “The newborn has a superactive brain and is primed to learn.”CLICK & SEE….>.….….(1)….……....(2)
Recent research, much of which relies on high-tech advances in intrauterine photography and brain imaging, now offers empirical proof of what parents have known all along: Babies are smart. What’s more, each baby is born with a unique personality that becomes readily apparent within the first few weeks of life. “Babies come into the world as themselves,” says Dr. Steiner. “It’s our job to get to know them.”
Baby’s Ability
Even though your baby can’t care for herself, what she is capable of at birth may surprise you. She’s born with 70 innate reflexes designed to help her thrive, some of which are truly remarkable. “Reflexes like the tonic neck reflex — in which your baby turns his head to one side, straightens one arm, and holds the other out — are critical to labor and delivery, helping your baby squirm around during the birth process, stimulating the uterus to keep contracting,” says Dr. Brazelton. In essence, he’s helping your labor progress.

Other reflexes are less subtle to a new parent. If left on his mother’s abdomen in a dim, quiet room after birth, a healthy newborn “will rest for about 30 minutes and will gaze at his mother’s face on and off,” reports Marshall Klaus, MD, who wrote the first textbook on neonatology and has coauthored a number of popular books for new parents, including Your Amazing Newborn (Perseus). Then he’ll begin smacking his lips and moving toward the breast completely unaided, using a powerful stepping reflex and bobbing his head up and down to gather momentum. Once at the breast, a newborn will open his mouth wide and place his lips on the areola, latching on all by himself for his first feeding. From that point on, these inborn responses will affect your newborn’s every move. The rooting reflex, for example, helps your baby seek nourishment. However, seemingly random, reflexive movements may be more intentional than we first thought. “When in a quiet, alert state, and in communication with a caregiver, some babies will reach out to try and touch something,” says Dr. Klaus.

Normal newborns at birth apparently have the underlying potential to reach for things, he explains, but their strong neck muscles are linked to their arms, so that a slight neck movement moves the arms as well. This connection protects the baby’s head from suddenly dropping forward or backward.
Baby’s Thinking
It depends upon how you define thought; of course, a newborn can’t share ideas. But some researchers believe that babies do put concepts together (albeit on a primitive level), evidenced by the fact that they remember and recognize their mother’s voice from birth, and express and respond to emotions before and immediately after birth. One could argue that memory and emotion are inextricably linked to thought. “A baby’s brain grows very differently depending on what sorts of experiences the baby has both in utero and after birth,” says Wendy Anne McCarty, PhD, the founding chair and faculty of the Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology Program at the Santa Barbara Graduate Institute, in California. “During gestation, birth, and early infant stages, we learn intensely and are exquisitely sensitive to our environment and relationships. From the beginning of life, we’re building memories.” Other experts say that a baby’s brain is too undeveloped to do more than orchestrate vital body functions. One fact remains clear: Newborns learn every day and apply that knowledge to their growing repertoire of skills. So can a newborn really think? Watch your baby, and judge for yourself!

Yopu may find the following:-In the first three months, your baby will learn to raise his or her head, smile, kick, move both arms and legs, roll over and make babbling noises. You will also learn to distinguish your baby’s cries, which will help you determine what your baby wants from you. Baby may also learn to wake up less as his or her stomach grows bigger and takes more in at a feeding.

Dr. Klaus discovered that newborns instinctively reach out until about 3 weeks of age, when this ability apparently disappears until about 3 months of age. This coincides with the time it takes your baby to start learning how to integrate his senses and gain control over his muscles. This is a prime example of how your baby’s need to learn so much, so quickly, means he must set aside some tasks while focusing on other, more important ones, such as regulating his sleep-wake cycles and figuring out how to focus his brand-new eyes on all the new sights around him.

So why do all these useful survival instincts seem to disappear so early — some as early as the 2-month mark? A baby spends the first few months of his life reacting to the world around him. But once he starts to understand where he ends and the world begins, which is partly a matter of brainpower, and partly a matter of practice, some behaviors that were once reflexive become active, as gradually baby learns that he can make things happen on his own and affect his environment. And, says Dr. Brazelton, “Just watching a baby learn is enough to give you hope for the human race.”

Baby’s Senses and Sensibility:-Touch:Your newborn’s skin is his largest and most highly developed sensory organ. At birth, your baby can respond to variations in temperature, texture, pressure, and pain. Your newborn’s lips and hands have the largest number of touch receptors, which may account for why newborns enjoy sucking on their fingers.
Smell: By the 28th week of pregnancy, your baby can use her nose. One piece of evidence: Newborns placed between a breast pad from their mother and one from another woman most often turn toward the one with the alluring Mom-smell.
Taste: In your womb, your baby gets a sampling of flavors as he swallows amniotic fluid. Studies have shown that fetal swallowing increases with sweet tastes and decreases with bitter or sour tastes.
Hearing: Although your baby’s middle ear is still somewhat immature at birth, as are the sound processing centers of his brain, your newborn can hear you and will prefer human speech over any other sounds, especially if the voice is yours.
Vision: By the time you actually meet your baby, her eyes are capable of excellent vision; however, her brain is still too immature to distinguish between different shades of color. By the time your baby is 3 months old, she will want to look at the world around her. She’ll prefer bright colors or sharp contrasts, and her favorite thing to look at will be faces.
Resources:
http://www.parents.com/baby/care/newborn/your-baby-from-birth-to-3-months/?page=5
http://www.thebabydepartment.com/babycare/baby-development.aspx

They placed magnets of 70 milliTesla (mT) field strength, which is about 10 times the strength of the common refrigerator magnet, near ratsâ€™ blood vessels and found that they dilated constricted blood vessels, and constricted vessels that were dilated. The results suggested that the magnetic filed could relax blood vessels and increase blood flow.

In the more recent study, the researchers used magnets on ratsâ€™ paws that had been treated with inflammatory agents to simulate tissue injury. The magnets significantly reduced swelling in the ratsâ€™ paws by up to 50 percent when applied immediately after the injury.

Dilation of blood vessels is a major cause of swelling, and it’s thought that the magnets worked by limiting blood flow.

Muscle bruising and joint sprains are the most common injuries worldwide, and since injuries that don’t swell heal faster, the magnet therapy could have widespread applications.

The researchers envisioned using magnets in place of ice packs and compression to treat injuries in high school, college, and professional sports teams, as well as among retirement communities.

A study of four-year-old twin girls has identified a rogue cell that is the root cause of childhood leukaemia.The finding could mean more specific and less intensive treatments for all children with the blood cancer.

click & see
..Isabella (l) and Olivia both have the pre-leukaemic stem cells

Both twins were found to have the “pre-leukaemic” cells in their bone marrow, although to date only one has developed leukaemia.

UK researchers reported in Science that a second genetic mutation is needed for full-blown disease to develop.

Leukaemia occurs when large numbers of white blood cells take over the bone marrow leaving the body unable to produce enough normal blood cells.

Along with lymphoma it accounts for almost half of childhood cancers.

Olivia Murphy, from Bromley in Kent, developed acute lymphoblastic leukaemia when she was two-years old – but so far her twin sister, Isabella, is healthy.

Researchers found they both have “pre-leukaemic stem cells” containing a mutated gene, which forms when the DNA is broken and rejoined at another point.

The pre-leukaemic cells are transferred from one twin to the other in the womb through their shared blood supply.

But it takes another genetic mutation in early childhood for the cells to cause disease.

This second mutation, which may be caused by infection, occurred in Olivia but not Isabella.

Doctors do regular tests on Isabella to look for signs of the cancer but once she reaches adolescence it is thought the rogue cells will disappear.Achilles heel

About 1% of the population is thought to be born with pre-leukaemia cells. Of these, 1% receive the second “hit” that leads to cancer.

Current treatments are far too aggressive to justify eliminating the rogue cells before cancer develops, which also means screening is unlikely.

But attacking the pre-leukaemic cells in children with leukaemia would be a better way of treating the disease and ensuring it does not come back, the researchers said.

Study leader Professor Tariq Enver, from the Medical Research Council Molecular Haematology Unit in Oxford, said: “These are the cells which drive and maintain the disease.

“Now we know about the cell, hopefully we can find an Achilles heel we can target.”

Professor Mel Greaves, from the Institute of Cancer Research and co-author on the study, said he suspected that the stem cells could escape conventional chemotherapy and cause relapse.

He said the study in the twins had been unique.

“There is an element of chance, we still have to work out why it happens in one child and not the other.

“We’re pretty certain it’s triggered by common childhood infection.”

Dr Phil Ancliff, consultant in paediatric haematology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, said 90% of children now survived leukaemia because of intensive chemotherapy, but that it came at a price.

“Now we know about the cell, hopefully we can find an Achilles heel we can target” said Professor Tariq Enver‘We were lucky’

Olivia lost the sight in one eye after she was unable to fight an infection due to her cancer treatment.

“A significant number of children are now being over-treated but we don’t know which children,” he said.

In the future, he added, children could be tested to see if the stem cells had been killed off after the first few weeks of chemotherapy with some being able to stop treatment earlier, sparing them harmful side-effects.